I started near the back, since I was treating this like a training run and didn’t want to go out too hard like last time. I could see Donato’s yellow cap getting further and further ahead of me, and by the time we had gone a mile, he had vanished from sight. The beginning of each loop was the same: run up a short incline, then trudge up the stairs. This was OK the first go around, but by the 6th and final loop, I was beginning to curse at them. Many of the stairs forces me to take far larger steps than I wanted, straining my quads too much. Ouchie!

The course turned out to be more scenic than I had anticipated. As we ran around the island, we got views of Oakland/Berkeley, San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Marin. Beautiful! I spent the first loop taking in the views and keeping my pace nice and easy. And the second and third loops too. Headed up to the summit on the third loop, I saw Donato and Brian – both looking strong and going fast! Heading down from the summit of the third loop I was in a pack with 3 of the 25K runners… and blazing down the trail faster than they were, even though they were nearly done and I was only half done. They ran through the finish, and I stopped at the aid station to refill my Camelbak and grab some munchies. Checked my watch as I headed out: 2:41. My previous 50K was run in 6:25, and I was on pace for well below 6 hours. Angel Island had 760’ less elevation gain than my previous 50K, but I had expected to take ~ 6 hours. However the terrain on Angel Island was much better than Salt Point. Almost the entire course was runnable – whereas Salt Point had many sections that were too steep to even think of running.

In the fourth loop things started to go downhill. The first and fourth loops were run primarily on asphalt. Although I do most of my training on asphalt, it still hurt like heck. My pace reflected this as it dropped from ~10:00 to 11:00 pace. Ugh! For the fifth loop, things were slightly better, but my pace was still slow. On the sixth loop, things started to look up. I was still suffering, but I knew this was the last loop and I would soon be done. I tried to push the pace back up – even though I was running uphill. After reaching the summit, I let it fly. The last 4 km were all downhill to the finish and I wasn’t about to waste any energy braking. I was tearing down the trails, bellowing out “runner!” whenever I saw people ahead. Crossed the finish in 5:35:something.

Quickly got my shirt, and some food, then went to grab a ferry back with Donato. It would have been nice to lounge around at the finish longer, but it would have meant waiting for the next ferry an hour later.